After another weekend of craptacular play the Yanks find themselves a game under .500 once again, and sitting behind the Toronto Blue Jays for 3rd place in the AL East a whopping 11.5 back of the Red Sox and 6.5 behind the Wild Card leading Indians. And while you could point the finger throughout the season towards the bullpen, the inconsistant hitting, or the millions of starting pitching injuries and beatdowns, here's a question why with a $200 million dollar payroll is the bench amongst the worst in Major League Baseball.
The Culprits
Melky Cabrera, Backup / Starting OF - We'll lump the Melkman with the bench despite the fact he's a starter now with Greese Head Steroids boy on the DL. The Melkman as a starter has been pretty decent since being thrusted into the everyday lineup batting over .300 for the month of June. However, his statline still reads a bit ugly. A .254 pretty much implies that when he was not starting and being put into the lineup sporadically he was 100% miserable.
Miguel Cairo, Utility IF - Cairo is a servicable bench player for any team. He can play any infield position and even sub in at LF if you are in dire need. But he's not a good hitter, in fact he's been downright bad this year. He's hitting at a .240 clip and has 5 RBIs this season in 75 at bats.
Chris Basak, Backup SS - The Yanks just recently called up Chris Basak. Ya I've never heard of him either, but he're an interesting stat line, he was hitting .265 in Triple A.
Kevin Thompson, Backup OF - Every time they bring this guy up I shake my head. He basically rots on the bench comes in occasionally and doesn't ever do anything. If you were to put together what a prototype Triple A player would be it's Thompson. He's got decent speed, is a decent outfielder, decent contact hitter, but lacks any pop in his bat. He has AAA written all over him.
Josh Phelps, Backup 1B - They recently waived Phelps to bring up Philips, but honestly who cares they both suck. In actuality Philips didn't do a miserable job at the plate with a .272 clip, but his glove at first was an embarrassment.
Andy Philips, Backup 1B -Now Philips has been brought up to most likely platoon with Cairo, Posada, Damon, eh whoever they feel like throwing at 1B that day. This is Philips fourth year where he's put on the pin stripes and he's never hit over .250 during any of those seasons and last year when he got some consistant playing time he hit .240.
Wil Nieves, Backup Catcher - He's the worst of the bunch. Nieves is establishing himself as quite possibly the worst hitter in major league baseball. Let's run down his stats. 5-45, .111, 0 XBHs, 2 Runs, 4 RBIs, 2 BB. Oh and one of Nieves hits he tried to stretch it to a double and was thrown out at 2nd. To put this in perspective let's compare Nieves to pitchers in the NL. First off no pitcher in baseball has 45 at bats as of yet. However, 21 pitchers have 5 or more hits this season. 4 Pitchers have 4 RBIs. 29 Pitchers have 2 or more runs. 8 Pitchers have hit a Home Run. 50 Pitchers have an extra base hit. Basically Nieves hits like a below average MLB pitcher and he's on the Yankees.
The worst part is, is that these guys with the exception of Melky aren't young. All of them are in the 28,29,30 range, aka they are not by any means prospects.
This Weekend
This weekend was a massive example of how the Yankees piss poor bench has hurt them this season. How can you expect to win a game in extra innings when you have a pitcher, Kevin Thompson, Andy Philips and Miguel Cairo in the game. That's 4 hideous batters out of 9 that are coming to bat. It just isn't going to happen and that's why they lost saturday. Yesterday they started with Cairo, Thompson, Nieves and Mussina in their order and pinch hit Philips later in the game. The result? The Yanks scored only one run through 8 innings, off Arods bat and got a meaningless RBI in the 9th from the aforementioned pinch hitter Andy Philips.
So the question is this, with a $200 million dollar payroll, how can you be stuck with no one on the bench who you could remotely expect to be productive at the plate. Mr. Cashman, your answer please?
The Culprits
Melky Cabrera, Backup / Starting OF - We'll lump the Melkman with the bench despite the fact he's a starter now with Greese Head Steroids boy on the DL. The Melkman as a starter has been pretty decent since being thrusted into the everyday lineup batting over .300 for the month of June. However, his statline still reads a bit ugly. A .254 pretty much implies that when he was not starting and being put into the lineup sporadically he was 100% miserable.Miguel Cairo, Utility IF - Cairo is a servicable bench player for any team. He can play any infield position and even sub in at LF if you are in dire need. But he's not a good hitter, in fact he's been downright bad this year. He's hitting at a .240 clip and has 5 RBIs this season in 75 at bats.
Chris Basak, Backup SS - The Yanks just recently called up Chris Basak. Ya I've never heard of him either, but he're an interesting stat line, he was hitting .265 in Triple A.
Kevin Thompson, Backup OF - Every time they bring this guy up I shake my head. He basically rots on the bench comes in occasionally and doesn't ever do anything. If you were to put together what a prototype Triple A player would be it's Thompson. He's got decent speed, is a decent outfielder, decent contact hitter, but lacks any pop in his bat. He has AAA written all over him.Josh Phelps, Backup 1B - They recently waived Phelps to bring up Philips, but honestly who cares they both suck. In actuality Philips didn't do a miserable job at the plate with a .272 clip, but his glove at first was an embarrassment.
Andy Philips, Backup 1B -Now Philips has been brought up to most likely platoon with Cairo, Posada, Damon, eh whoever they feel like throwing at 1B that day. This is Philips fourth year where he's put on the pin stripes and he's never hit over .250 during any of those seasons and last year when he got some consistant playing time he hit .240.
Wil Nieves, Backup Catcher - He's the worst of the bunch. Nieves is establishing himself as quite possibly the worst hitter in major league baseball. Let's run down his stats. 5-45, .111, 0 XBHs, 2 Runs, 4 RBIs, 2 BB. Oh and one of Nieves hits he tried to stretch it to a double and was thrown out at 2nd. To put this in perspective let's compare Nieves to pitchers in the NL. First off no pitcher in baseball has 45 at bats as of yet. However, 21 pitchers have 5 or more hits this season. 4 Pitchers have 4 RBIs. 29 Pitchers have 2 or more runs. 8 Pitchers have hit a Home Run. 50 Pitchers have an extra base hit. Basically Nieves hits like a below average MLB pitcher and he's on the Yankees.The worst part is, is that these guys with the exception of Melky aren't young. All of them are in the 28,29,30 range, aka they are not by any means prospects.
This Weekend
This weekend was a massive example of how the Yankees piss poor bench has hurt them this season. How can you expect to win a game in extra innings when you have a pitcher, Kevin Thompson, Andy Philips and Miguel Cairo in the game. That's 4 hideous batters out of 9 that are coming to bat. It just isn't going to happen and that's why they lost saturday. Yesterday they started with Cairo, Thompson, Nieves and Mussina in their order and pinch hit Philips later in the game. The result? The Yanks scored only one run through 8 innings, off Arods bat and got a meaningless RBI in the 9th from the aforementioned pinch hitter Andy Philips.
So the question is this, with a $200 million dollar payroll, how can you be stuck with no one on the bench who you could remotely expect to be productive at the plate. Mr. Cashman, your answer please?
Comments